Not sure who this thread is supposed to be "addressing," but the FSPS students who participate in SDN deserve better treatment than is being doled out here and on the petition to the APA thread
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=808593. Let me rephrase that. I and the other folks going to FSPS deserve the same respect you would otherwise reserve for yourselves. Juvenile posturing such as calling our programs "****" or a "blight on psychology" is almost the smaller point. The argument is made that these programs are public safety risks. These are claims made by people speaking as scientists, yet their most compelling arguments rely on arbitrary ethics and rickety logic masquerading as valid data and irrefutable proof. The discussion does not simply lapse into absurdity, it starts there.
For example. It's frequently stated that large class sizes will keep people from getting adequate supervision, mentoring, and development opportunities. Prove it. In my first year practicum at this blighted FSPS I get about 5 hours/week direct service (super light, I admit, but hey – it's first year and lots of students elsewhere don't get a jot until second year) coupled with 7.5 hours supervision (individual and small group of 4-6 people) and case conference ( 7-8 people). I call that an embarrassment of riches. It is harder to quantify the ease with which I can contact professors, join committees, attend community events, etc. Because of the variety of supervisory sources (in school and in the community) and the large cohort size we are getting a pretty rich exposure to a huge number of perspectives. It's called synergy, folks.
And while a greater percentage of my FSPS training (compared to the Unie experience) is community based, EVEN IF the agencies/programs/practices I interact with are often economically and emotionally battered, there is a wealth there that is at least as great as you find in your universities, and it's not all wrapped up in a pretty bow for us, meaning we learn in the hurly burly of making our way. Further, while it has been argued that Unies are superior training environments because of the rich cross-departmental support, I'll but there's a fair amount of rigidity and interdepartmental competition for scarce resources in academia today…let's not pretend the unies are perfect little utopias. Lastly, not every one of our faculty members comes from a clinical background, either.
I say this not to tout my program, but to suggest that the arguments against my program actually begin to seem bewilderingly retiring for a discipline as young and promising as psychology. I have stated that the problems of our day and age are complex, interdependent and open ended. The anti-FSPS crowd repeatedly stakes positions that imply psychology should cede leadership in the overcoming of such "low rung" challenges to the so-called "mid-levels" (the LCSWs and MFTs). All too often the preferred courses seem to be either turning back the clock to a time when clinical psychology was limited to assessment and testing, serving the military, or wailing for equal footing with psychiatry.
Psychology has done and can do better, and the folks at my little program and others like it are proving it every day in the communities we serve. The Unie folks should be grateful not simply because we may be helping friends and relations, but also because this is a model of participatory research that serves as ample material for you to work with, in your own model of science, too. I am not only imagining but working the PsyD degree as a community/ clinical psych hybrid. I hope its not too blighted a heresy to you all to suggest the science conducted at this little FSPS may even trickle up to your labs.
Again, it's called synergy folks. You may not want to do the work I'm doing, I may not want to do the work you're doing. I couldn't care less if you throw my CV in the trash (and it's debatable whether I'd even apply), but you only limit the field if you deny the dialectic. The PsyDs and PhDs who do this "low rung" work have my respect. Do you really imagine they are just wallowing in the dreck because they have nothing better to do? For some, work at this level is a calling and could never be a simple trophy hunt. What I'm thinking is there is a myth of "less leading edge" work – if a job posts for MFT/LCSW/PsyD/PhD, the degree is simply the entry level requirement. There will be questions as to why an agency that is strapped for cash should pay for a doctor when it could have a masters level clinician. Once on the job, if the PhD/PsyDs let their training and performance be equated with a lesser degree then that's their fault, but it also is a loss for psychology not because it drags the salary of the folks from the unies down – it represents a blown opportunity to create inroads for psychological innovation. Innovation that could just as easily be a Unie's big meal ticket if they know how to examine it. Not that we are all saints, but how dare anybody question FSPSers interest to make use of the IBR plan(s)!!
The question has been raised about what subjects should be used as pre-reqs in clinical psychology departments, and folks laughed about calculus, swooned over neuroanatomy, bio, etc. If we included first ethics, the history of dialectical methods, the life and times of Freud, the history of civil rights movements, labor history, the history of Islamic science, multi-cultural awareness, etc., can you imagine how things would change?
And the professional schools, whether free standing or not, do not – as a class – provide a shortcut to the title of doctor. I'm here because of a twenty year sojourn, and the work I'm doing is rigorous and exhilarating, thank you. Professional schools, be they free standing or not, often provide a different model for folks who have a different life path than you and also a different prize in mind for psychology. For anybody to call concerns born of this observation "petty" and "nit-picking" is just way out of touch not simply with your fellow students but also with areas for profound innovation. It's a shame that the best you can do is to look at what you don't understand in your fellow professionals and psychologists-to-be and simply beg that it be banished.
As for naivete, self-centeredness, blindness, or other pejoratives that have been hurled at those who would seek to study or are currently studying at FSPSs: Let me flip the terms for you, and see how it sits. Please don't necessarily believe that I necessarily believe the following formulation: Many folks who dream of going to the unies are lured by the dream of power and prestige. They work hard to demonstrate that their unsullied and unimpeachable rationality will be the highest octane fuel for the progressive machine. They are hooked at a time (mid to late adolescence/early adulthood) when they are most floridly authoritarian. They achieve their dreams and come out sounding like elitists. They find work for the military and/or pharmaceutical-industrial/medical complex (note the argument is that FSPSers do not stand a chance at such coveted positions). They argue that while greed may not be good, they are entitled to big dollars and above working in the trenches because they've paid their dues and they can show all the data in their scientific power to generate that their expertise is critical to helping the machine run at optimal efficiency. The machine that starts the wars which dig the trenches that drain the wealth from the communities. Are these child psychologist-soldiers any more enlightened?
Lastly, note: I am not saying I am against raising standards in the profession. I am all for raising standards in the communities we serve, to exempt the profession would be to undermine the community. I addressed many of the above points, and others, in the petition thread. What I am against is the broad based, all or nothing attacks on the PsyD degree in general and the myopic call to shut down FSPSs in particular.
Thanks for your time.
